Wharfedale
MFM3
Floorstanding Speakers

Product Description

User Reviews

Overall Rating:

Value Rating:

Submitted by
john2226us
a Audio Enthusiast

Date Reviewed: June 19, 2003

Bottom Line:

I bought these speakers after reading reviews here on Auidioreview.
I wanted great sound for my money. I auditioned many speakers locally. I found nothing in my price range that sounded good to me. I had $200 or less for speakers. My set-up is as follows.
Harman Kardon AVR-30 reciever
Harman Kardon FL 8400 CD changer
Wharfedale MFM-3 Loudspeakers.
Acoustic Research Speaker cable- 16 Ga.

I find these speakers to sound very very good with this setup. The HK reciever easily powers them to uncomfortable levels in my 15X18 room. They hold their sound up to those loud volumes. No loss in clarity or distortion is heard. These are great speakers,period. Someone else stated this earlier in a review and i agree. They have a very warm, clean sound. Great highs, though not perfect. Very good though, and crisp. The mids are there and fat, but not too much so. Bass is more than enough. It is clean and tight. It accents, rather than overpowers the music, which has become the accepted sound for bass these days im afraid. If you are using these for Home theater or listen to a lot of rap or hip hop, which i dont, then you would need a sub. For music listening bass is more than adaquate. These speakers tend to reprouduce music very accurately. The soundstaging is very good in my opinion.The imagaing is good as well. When listening to Otis Redding's Sitting on the Dock, i couldnt believe my ears. Percussion from the left, strings from the right, and Otis' voice from the middle of nowhere in front of me. If i close my eyes i would swear the sound was in front of me where there are no speakers. Im not an Audiophile, but to me this is exceptional. This is the way it should be. These speakers are more than worth what i paid for them. They are worth 2 or 3 times the amount i paid.
Nothing in their price range comes close. Many speakers at twice the price dont come close. If you need good speakers at a low price, find a pair of these. You wont be sorry.

Before I go into the review, I want it to be known I am using a Grommes 24PG vintage tube amplifier with TaraLabs bottom-end interlinks and TaraLabs middle-grade biwireable speaker wire. Also a sony CD/MD deck which features 20-bit DAC.

When I first listened to them, I was amazed at their efficiancy, while I certainly maintain that much of that 500 watt amplifier Jr. has goes to waste, my Grommes is only at 12 watts per channel. I have yet to really crank it, but at about level three of ten is sufficiantly loud for normal "loud listening" Also, I detect no compression at louder volumes either.

However, this may not be due to the sensitivity, but rather it's supurb staging and imaging which I feel is more accurate than surround sound, at least in my room.

While I would complain that the highs are not as bright and crisp as I would like them to be, once the bass fell into place and thus turning down the bass on my amplifier, the highs came in clear and crisp, with solid, subtle bass. As of now, I have turned all tones to "flat" and find that this is the best way to run these speakers once well tempered.

Many complain about the lack of bass with these speakers. I know these speakers can produce deep, loud bass. Vintage amplifiers tend to produce thicker bass, which, for my taste needs to be toned down a little, the quality is nice, but the amount is not balanced, so perhaps newer amps are not feeding enough bass to make these loudspeakers sensitive to the low signal. However, I have another theory.

Either casual listeners are not letting their loudspeakers warm-up (about 30 hours) or they are used to the "thump and puff" distortion that has become the standard for "great bass" Bass [in nature]simply doesn't sound like a pair of 8" subwoofers in the back of a pickup truck! It is not a matter of being any less quiet, rather just more subtle and accurate.

Often I have read that these are good speakers "for the price" These are good speakers period, and, if warfedale did not unload so many into the refurbished market, they would still be $600 a pair.

I ordered these speakers on ebay, and after hearing some people's opinion about wharfedale I was a little worried, these mfm3's are replacing some cheap sony towers from best buy, well all that worry was for nothing, these speakers sound awesome and the build quality was certainly surprising at this price, it puts yamaha and even JBL's to shame, yes you can find a better built speaker but you will pay at least 600 bucks a pair, and I've already ordered a second pair of these for my rear surrounds.

I was searching for a low cost alternative to my EPI 120's, so I took a chance on the MFM3's. I am extremely pleased with these speakers. The sound is very rich and satisfying. These are the best sounding speakers I've owned, and I've owned some good and expensive speakers. I bought them solely on Wharfedale's reputation for quality sound, and I would certainly buy more speakers from this company in the future, although I believe it's best to audition them first. The only time I'd ever heard Wharfdales' previously was in a snooty hi-fi shop, and I was given the impression they were only for the most discerning and wealthy audiofiles. I admit to being a little fearful the bass would not be that great, but it is very deep, tight and accurate. Great speakers!

Recently bought a pair of these online without ever listening to a pair. I figured that for $160 shipped it was worth the risk. I was pleasently suprised once I got them out of the box and hooked up. These speaker produce a great, full, transparent sound. I've read some reviews that criticize the low bass of these speakers, but I found the bass to be quite full sounding, considering the size of these speakers. True the very low bass frequencies may be slightly lost, but the mid-bass of these will defintely shake the room a little. The ohnly real complaint that I might have concerning thesde peakers it that the grill is difficult to put back in place after it's been removed, a small price to pay for such a great sounding spaeker.